The correct way to read this chart, is to compare the grade9FTs (first timers) in 2018-19, to the grade 12 students in 2021-22.  Doing so, shows that as freshman, the Class of ’22 had 70% of students on-track for graduation.  By the time they became seniors, that number dropped to 61%.  The district, and RISE, lost grip on nearly 10% of HPS students who were freshman in the 2018-19 school year.

The district would like you to read the chart as it is grouped, by class level in of itself.  Doing so, shows that each grade level, except for sophomores, have a year-over-year increase the past 3 years.  But these are not the same students, so they present it as comparing one year’s freshman class with another year’s freshman class (and so on), and calling that a show of improvement.  This is wrong.

One must also question whether the “restful contours” of the district’s on-track data mountain, can it stand up “for eternity.”  Is this solid data?  Is it meaningful?  It’s pretty much a croc.  This on-track data represents HPS’ focus on graduating the student, rather than educating the student.  Data they do not control raises doubts as to the legitimacy of this on-track data program.  Thereby extinguishing RISE’s reason for existing, saving the district hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Look at the chart for grades 11-12.  During the 2021-22 school year, HPS is telling us that 59% of juniors and 61% of seniors were and/or are on-track to graduate.  However, for the 2021-22 school year, EdSight, the state’s official source for educational data, reports that only 10.6% of HPS juniors and seniors were determined to be “college ready,” as measured by the SAT.  Which means that by “college readiness” standards, 90% of HPS’ grade 11-12 on-trackers today, should not be graduating tomorrow.

For those who say screw the SAT, they’re not going to college anyhoo, let’s compare the bricks and mortar of a successful education with the smoke and mirrors of on-track data.

EdSight tracks some students’ “Performance Index”, which is an average performance number ranging from 0-100 in 3 core subject areas, ELA, math, and science, as scored on the state summative assessments.  The ultimate, preferred, target for a Performance Index is 75 in each of the subject areas.  For high schoolers, only grade 11 data is available.

In the 2018-19 school year, HPS juniors scored a 47 in ELA, 44 in math, and a 45 in science.   Yet HPS is telling us today that in 2018-19, 62% of juniors were on-track to graduate.  The following year, HPS had a graduation rate of 69%.

Due to COVID, Performance Index data was not collected, or at least, is not provided, for the school years 2019-20, and 2020-21.

In the school year 2021-22, HPS juniors scored a 44 in ELA, 40 in math, and a 42 in science.   Yet HPS is telling us today that in 2021-22, 55% of juniors were on-track to graduate. 

It’s like Trump University around here.

Looking at EdSight data for chronic absenteeism among Hartford’s public high schools, we find that despite not coming to school, students may still be considered by the district as being on-track to graduation.

For the school year 2018-19, 68% of Bulkeley freshman were chronically absent, yet HPS states that 70% of district freshman were on-track to graduation.  As sophomores, their CA rate was at 62%, while HPS was telling us that 65% of HPS sophomores were on-track to graduate.  As juniors, Bulkeley’s CA rate was at 81%, but in 2020-21, HPS had 59% of juniors on track to graduate.  As seniors, Bulkeley’s CA rate was at 64%, and HPS had 61% of district seniors on track to graduate for the 2021-22 school year.  

Bulkeley’s graduation rate for the 2021-22 school year is not available on EdSight, however, in 2020-21, Bulkeley seniors had a CA rate of 64%, and a graduation rate of 61%. 

HPS is celebrating their on-track graduation data, while reality shows that data is not representative of a student’s readiness for graduation in the context of having obtained a level of basic knowledge to graduate.  So, while we’re concerned with the multitudes of HPS students not graduating, these comparisons show that we must also be concerned with the students who are graduating.

Naturally, if you compare the district’s on-track to graduate data with actual graduation numbers, they will align nicely with the “fetters of one’s own desires,” or, as the district would like them to align.  This is due to the various “strategies” employed by HPS to get students across the finish line – at whatever cost.

These strategies are what the district calls “Alternative Pathways” and “Credit Recovery Pathways.”  There is an “Opportunity Academy,” where folks aged 19-21 “earn” their missing credits for graduation.  And a “Comprehensive Advising” strategy, the focus here put on the social-emotional aspect of earning a diploma for those not making the academic grade.

In 2015, in Brooklyn, NY, the Department of Education also had a “Credit Recovery Program,” a teacher from one high school referred to it as “easy pass.”

These strategies represent “personalized education,” or in layman’s terms, we’ll hold your damn hand and get you walking across that stage.

I would prefer to source all information I put forth for you, however, due to the often heard criticisms of the vindictive, blame-the-teachers nature of HPS leadership over the past 7 years, some sources must remain anonymous to protect careers and livelihoods.  The following information was provided to me by HPS teachers and serve as only 2 examples of not uncommon district practice.

During one school year, a student’s regular Spanish teacher was out for the year.  The student would later tell another teacher that the long-term substitute Spanish teacher provided packets of class work, which was labeled by the student as “busy work,” and which went ungraded.

The student passed Spanish class that year with a B+.

The next year, the student, now a senior, attended a different Hartford high school, and was placed in the next level of Spanish.  The student could not participate or test at that level of Spanish.  The student was given an assessment test at a lower level of Spanish, which he failed, and, in fact, he wasn’t even able to complete the test.  This was the level which he had obtained the B+ during the previous year.

The issue was reported to school leadership, who elected to keep the student in the higher level of Spanish.  The teacher provided the student with remedial Spanish work and provided after school tutoring for the student.

As a senior, the student needed this Spanish credit in order to graduate on time with his class.  When the student took the much-needed final exam, he failed.  In fact, he failed on 6 attempts at the test.  Despite this, school leadership passed him gave him the credit, and the student then graduated, pushed through without having met the requirements for a passing or graduating student.

A teacher informed me of how a colleague and the teacher would attend the graduation ceremony for their high school.  Sitting in the audience, each held a check list of seniors who had not passed their classes that year, thus not having earned the necessary number of credits to graduate that year.  They each would check off the names of students who were called to the stage despite not having met the requirements of a graduating senior.

Do not think that these data looks and stories are simple and uncommon.  In 2017, at Washington D.C.’s Ballou High School, every senior was awarded a diploma, and they were all accepted to a college.  A state investigation of Ballou high’s graduation practices began.  It was found that 50% of the graduating class had missed 3 months of the school year.

A Queens principal at Maspeth High School was fired in 2022 after creating fake classes, awarding credits to failing students, and fixing grades to “push kids out the door.”  He was fined $12,000 and barred from working as a principal “in the city,” which means his certifications were incorrectly left unscathed by his criminality.

In 2015, a grade fixing and academic fraud scandal hit John Dewey High School in Brooklyn.  An investigation revealed that some students were allowed to watch the film “Jurassic Park” to obtain course credits.  “Hundreds” of students graduated that didn’t deserve to graduate, “hundreds” passed courses that didn’t deserve to pass course. A Dewey High teacher stated that the “fraud is massive…it’s on a scale that makes me ashamed to be here.”

All is not what it appears.